Page 52 - PC Gamer - UK (February 2020)

G AMES O F THE D ECAD E

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H IS T O R Y HAL L O F F AME I E A R L Y A C C E S S I L O C A L P L AY TA C T I C S I PRE D I C TI O N S

provide online infrastructure,
community management, and
marketing to build a player base,” says TEAM PLAY The games that made us believe in the couch again
Blythe, who’s currently hard at work
on Samurai Gunn 2. “I imagine large
studios view local multiplayer as a
feature that will be seldom used, so
it’s not worth implementing. You
would have to design for it from the
start, and there are limited technical
resources when you consider the SAMURAI TOWERFALL: NIDHOGG GANG ROCKET OVERCOOKED! STICK FIGHT
graphical fidelity that these games are GUNN ASCENSION 2014 BEASTS LEAGUE 2016 2017
trying to reach. To require two-player 2013 2013 2014 2015
support, you would have to render
everything twice. It’s a lot to think
about and it doesn’t ensure any more sales.”

ANTI-MARKET RESEARCH
Daniel Sterger, the designer of the hilarious,
outstandingly pornographic Mount Your Friends, believes
that as a rule indie developers tend to exploit
inefficiencies in the Triple-A market. “We have to push
against mainstream trends to an extent,” he says. “We
don’t have the ability to compete head-to-head so we

turn to niches we believe have an
audience that isn’t being approached
by the industry.” Sterger continues by ABOVE: We will all
noting that his presence outside a remember our first
major studio allows him to not be Overcooked disaster.
stymied by market research or a LEFT: Rocket League
massive, micromanaged design team, took local multiplayer
which allowed him to experiment momentum all the
with, say, a videogame about way to an
ascending a mountain made of international
esports scene.
jiggling flesh.
Another, more specific reason?
Mount Your Friends was first
conceived in a game jam and built in
a weekend. So many indie games first make a name for
themselves on the tour of PAXes, Cons and other industry
bacchanals, and local multiplayer became the ideal way to
demonstrate a project seeking publisher support in 15
minute intervals on a hectic show floor.
“[It gives] developers easy access to people unfamiliar
with their game to test their designs, [compared to] an
idea built around level design, complex AI, or
worldbuilding,” says Sterger.

NOSTALGIA, ULTRA
Most importantly though, each of the developers I spoke
to harboured a deep, fundamental passion for local
multiplayer, and some expressed dismay about the
direction the gaming hobby is going. It often feels like big
budget publishers expect us to sink thousands of hours
into their new hubworld, and its new systems and

M ARCH 21 , 2017 JUNE 1 2, 2017 SEP T 14, 2017
17 M AS S EFFEC T NOTCH GOES DIVINIT Y
WRONG
ANDROMEDA
ORIGINAL SIN II
0 Bioware’s shot at Markus Persson, now Larian’s impressive
both redeeming and
a billionaire, tweets
follow-up cements
2 soft-rebooting Mass an unprintable insult the studio’s newly
Effect goes horribly at developer Zoe prestigious status.
awry as they unveil a Quinn and formally It’s so good, it takes
messy adventure full kicks off his slide into the number one spot
of bugs. online alt-rightery. of our Top 100 list.

52 FEBRUARY 2020